No More Happily Ever Afters
by Dark Aegis
Summary: Where have all the happily ever afters gone?


**Title:** No More Happily Ever Afters  
**Author:** Gillian Taylor  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Ten/Rose, implied Nine/Rose  
**Summary:** Where have all the happily ever afters gone?  
**Spoilers:** Parting of the Ways  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.  
**Archive:** Sure, just let me know.

**A/N:** As always, I'd like to extend my thanks to my lovely betas NNWest and WMR.

* * *

_"No More Happily Ever Afters"  
by Gillian Taylor_

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, a man met a woman in a dark cellar and nothing would ever be the same again. Years, both real and experienced - for what is time to those who travel through it? - passed by them both, solidifying a bond that was beyond anything that either had experienced before. For the man, scarred from war, he found his light in the darkness. For the woman, she had found her reason to live - truly live - as she had never been able to before. Neither would trade their lives for anything else for that 'anything else' could never include the other. It was love that tied them together and it had withstood trials that would bring a lesser bond to its knees. And then...one part of that bond was consumed by golden light, changing their love forever. A new man, a new _being_ had taken his place and in that moment her world cried out in one voice: Where have all the happily ever afters gone?

* * *

Pink laces, faerie castles, and shining knights on white horses - these were the things that roamed through a young Rose Tyler's mind. Now, as the years wore on, those childhood fantasies had disappeared to be replaced by the harsh realities of an adult world. However, the child inside her continued to believe that no matter how long it would take, a happily ever after awaited her at the end of the road.

Now, that previously unshakable belief had been shattered. He was gone, consumed in a blaze of golden light, to leave in his place a stranger in a pin-striped suit. There had been a time, when he had first confessed his love and they had lain entwined beneath the covers, that she began to believe that she had finally found the happily ever after that she had been searching for.

However, like all things, she soon learned that dreams were meant to be shattered upon the harsh realities of life. He had saved the universe, saved her, and in the process he had lost his life. Regeneration, he had called it. Every cell in his body had died, and been replaced, in an instant leaving brown eyes staring into her own rather than the familiar blue.

Her lover was gone. And yet she would sometimes catch glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye. Just down the hallway from her room, just around the corner, just behind her when she walked towards the kitchen. He was there. Haunting her. Reminding her of what she had lost. She began to pull away from the man who insisted that he was the Doctor. How could he be when he wasn't _hers_?

When night crept over the TARDIS and she should have been asleep, she would move silently through the endless hallways of the time-ship searching, ever searching, for a hint of the man she loved. Yet the tall figure was elusive. She could catch him just on the edges of her vision, as though he were there for but a moment, yet when she turned he was gone. She was reminded of a poem she had once read about a man on a stair, and she vaguely wondered if this was what going crazy was like.

Would she always see him on the edge of her vision, the way he used to be? Would the rest of her days be filled with furtive memories of his scent, the way he grinned, or the gleam in his blue eyes as they embarked on yet another adventure? The Doctor was there but he wasn't _her_ Doctor. The happily ever after that she had dreamed that she had found was gone, scattered into a million pieces by a burst of golden light that stole her love away. Now she was left chasing a memory.

Rose sighed softly as she edged out of the console room, ignoring the concerned look sent her way by the stranger in the pin-striped suit. How could she believe that it was him? Her Doctor? How could she believe that he still loved her if she could not believe it herself?

Now she chased the shadow - a hint of a leather-clad figure darting just ahead of her in the TARDIS' endless halls. He was there. He had to be. How could he leave her like this? Steeling herself, she put on an additional burst of speed.

"Doctor!" she cried, even though she knew it was impossible that he was there. She had seen her man upon the stair, a man who was not there. Rose Tyler wanted to hold onto that image and deny reality. He would never leave her like this.

She caught a hint of black leather darting through a door. Throwing caution to the winds, Rose crossed the threshold and stepped into a room that she had never seen before.

The label 'room' did not fit, for it seemed to be infinite. A lush green landscape stretched out before her. An artificial sun gleamed overhead in a perfectly blue sky that was only broken by the blur of gossamer wings. Butterflies, she realised.

"Doctor?" she called, her eyes darting about the field, desperate to catch a glimpse of her man upon the stair.

Only the fluttering of dozens of wings reacted to her voice, and, shaking her head, she began to search. "Doctor? Doctor!"

Nothing.

Save for the soft sounds made by her feet crushing the grass and the soft wisps of air generated by the butterflies, she felt enveloped in silence. Nothing, save for herself and the insects, moved within the odd room-that-was-not-a-room. Her ghost had disappeared.

She sunk to the ground slowly, feeling despair well up within her. How much longer could she take this? How much longer could she live chasing ghosts? "Oh, Doctor," she whispered. "How do I live without you?"

Faint movement on one of the lower branches of the tree closest to her caught her attention. A multi-hued chrysalis shook faintly as its occupant struggled to free itself. She found herself caught within the tiny creature's plight. The struggle for existence. The struggle to be born. The struggle to live. She found herself leaning forward with each miniscule movement of the chrysalis. A crack appeared and the struggles seemed to escalate. Rose held her breath as the butterfly freed itself, exhausted. Delicate wings extended themselves, flapping gently as they began to dry. Moisture faded to reveal brilliant blue wings - wings that were the same colour as her Doctor's eyes.

"It's a bit like that, you know." A familiar Northern accent spoke from beside her. Her man upon the stair had returned to sit beside her, only this time he spoke with her Doctor's voice.

Rose drew in a shocked breath and she turned. He was there. Her Doctor. His vivid blue eyes caught her own within their gaze and she tentatively reached out to touch him. He seemed real. Yet he could not be. He was dead. However, despite herself, she replied. "What is?"

He caught her hand within his own, his slightly cooler skin sending shocks through her system. No figment could touch. No illusion could make her feel this way. Right? "Regeneration. It's hard to be born again. It takes effort, and sometimes it's hard to find the will to continue. However, if you let it happen...well, the result's worth it. 'Cause without the chrysalis you'd never get the butterfly." His eyes seemed so earnest as he tried to explain his thoughts to her.

Tears welled within her eyes. "But it's hard. It's so hard..."

"I know it is," he said softly. "An' that's the thing, Rose. I'm not the only one who has to deal with the chrysalis. So d'you."

"You died..."

"Nope. Still here, me. Bit prettier, maybe. But it's still me. Inside. 'Cause even though I changed, I'm still me. I still love you." The familiar features of the ninth doctor blurred and faded into the compassionate brown eyes of the newest version. Her breath caught upon a sob and she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm sorry, so, so sorry," she mumbled over and over again.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for," the Doctor reassured her as he stroked her hair. The northern accent, the ninth Doctor's speech patterns were gone.

"I do," she said. "I'm sorry for what I said. For what I did. And that I didn't believe you. That I didn't believe you were the Doctor."

It was then, as she stared into familiar brown eyes that had once been blue, that she realised the truth. She smiled at him before pressing her lips against his in a kiss. Though they had kissed before, this was new. This was after the chrysalis. She now knew how her fairy tale would end. She knew how it was supposed to go.

There was no happily ever after. There was only happily ever _now_.

* * *

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, a man met a woman in a dark cellar and nothing would ever be the same again. Years, both real and experienced - for what is time to those who travel through it? - passed by them both, solidifying a bond that was beyond anything that either had experienced before. For the man, scarred from war, he found his light in the darkness. For the woman, she had found her reason to live - truly live - as she had never been able to before. Neither would trade their lives for anything else, for that 'anything else' could never include the other. It was love that tied them together and it had withstood trials that would bring a lesser bond to its knees.

And then...one part of that bond was consumed by golden light. Though his face had changed, it was merely a covering, for the real man could never change how he felt. Time is a cruel mistress, but in this it had given their bond a reprieve. They learned that to expect forever was impossible, even for - or perhaps because of - a Time Lord. There was only now. There were no happily ever afters. There were only happily ever _nows_ and it was enough.

_FIN_


End file.
